


Tombless as Their Flesh

by reine_des_corbeaux



Category: Giselle (Ballet)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/F, Ghosts, Mentions of Suicide, Screwed-up relationships, mentions of past canon relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-25
Updated: 2019-10-25
Packaged: 2021-01-03 04:14:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21173246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reine_des_corbeaux/pseuds/reine_des_corbeaux
Summary: Myrtha welcomes a new wili.





	Tombless as Their Flesh

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cookinguptales](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cookinguptales/gifts).

She wasn’t in love. 

Love was a knife; it was cold, hard misery cutting through the heart and turning arteries to ice, and she had learned to be fearful of it. The fear made her queen for a second time, the only time that counted. Little Myrtha, dreamy Myrtha, Myrtha who wove the grape vines into crowns after the harvest and was pretty enough to be the Harvest Queen, was gone as though she had never existed. Her body lay at the crossroads, ruled by worms, and sometimes she still felt those worms like a phantom ache behind phantom eyes. She didn’t feel them quite so often now that decay was mostly done and only bones remained. 

Myrtha didn’t love. She raged, and in that rage, she found a purpose. The rage animated her soul and tied her to her flesh in the trees, and though there were roots knotting themselves about her bones, she climbed from her grave by night and made men regret their wrongs.   
This was what wilis did, and Myrtha was Queen of the Wilis because she went to her death screaming curses and shaking the heavens. No one remembered crowning her queen of the grape harvest now. 

Sometimes, when she thought of her life before the forest and the crossroads, Myrtha wondered if they even spoke her name in the village, or if no one thought to connect the suicides’ plot in the forest with the mad young witch who died, or who perhaps was killed. It mattered not. She was a queen now of something more than grape vines. 

But that led to the problem of love. Because, if she’d been mortal, she was sure that at this moment, watching her new subject arise, she’d feel that strange tightening in her chest, the wrenching feeling that, so many eternities ago, led her to her death. The wili before her was weak and pale and trembling. Her damp wings fluttered like those of a trapped moth, and her shoulders heaved as humanity shook out of her, her face still wet with the remnants of her human tears. 

“Where am I?” the girl asked, looking wildly around. “This can’t be heaven.” 

“You were buried as a suicide,” Myrtha said. She was calm. She had explained this to many girls before, all equally confused and moth-like. “No heaven waits for you. But this is unfair, because you were murdered. And so, we now make life a hell for those who condemned us.” 

“I don’t understand.” The girl looked up at Myrtha. “I didn’t want to die.” 

That not-love surged within her once again, that desire to protect, to make the vile man who hurt this woman pay for his crimes. 

“Of course you didn’t.” She placed a hand on the girl’s shoulder, pale in the moonlight, the dark shadows of bones shimmering through Myrtha’s translucent, spectral skin. “Which is why we shall punish the murderer together. What is your name?” 

The girl’s wings flapped with more vigour now, as though she was a proper wili already, and not still half a frightened villager. 

“Giselle.” 

“Giselle. A good name, and I can tell that you shall be a very good wili,” Myrtha said. 

Giselle began to sob as Myrtha helped her to her feet, her final tears rolling down her ghostly face. 

“I can’t be a wili,” she cried. “I loved him! I didn’t want to die.” 

Myrtha knew everything then, everything from Giselle’s breathless tears. She reached out, and grabbed her by the arm, pulled her close and held her tight. 

“Do you feel how cold I am, Giselle? Do you feel the sourness of death? Don’t cry over your murderer. Put aside your tears and find yourself revenge.” 

She kissed her then, first upon the forehead, and then upon the lips. Giselle’s mouth still tasted of wine and bread and life, but not for long. Myrtha would cover her in kisses, fill her with the breath of the tomb. She’d make her angry yet, and she could already see it: Giselle with cold eyes, flashing with fury, dancing a man to death. They’d execute her murderer together. Perhaps, Myrtha thought, the Queen of the Wilis could even take a consort. 

**Author's Note:**

> I was beyond excited to see your request for Giselle, as it's one of my favorite ballets of all time! Myrtha's always been a favorite character of mine, and it's such a perfectly Halloweeny ballet. Hope you enjoy! 
> 
> Title is from Lord Byron's "Darkness".


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